READ IT: Jim West knows his way around a radio switchboard, having deejayed for more than two decades at the Valley’s two biggest country stations, KNIX and KMLE. Turns out, he knows his way around a guitar fretboard, too. His new book, The Phoenix Sound (History Press), recounts some of the most monumental moments in local music: Sanford Clark and Lee Hazlewood recording the 1956 Top 10 hit “The Fool,” Duane Eddy inventing the sound of twang, Waylon Jennings’ gigs at JD’s, the Buck Owens-owned days of KNIX, etc. With a foreword by Arizona’s official historian, Marshall Trimble, The Phoenix Sound manages to capture an era of audio magic unmatched to this day.

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